Missing package from a lost loved one now gone for good

Editor’s Note: This story contains references to suicide. If you or a loved one is at risk of self-harm, Canada’s mental health helpline can be reached at 988 and the BC Crisis Centre at 1-800-784-2433. Translation services are available.

A New Westminster resident is desperately searching for a lost package from a loved one who has since passed away.

Ashley Gould says her uncle, Ed Bakker, shipped a package to his sister — Gould’s mother — the day before last year’s Canada Post strike.

Bakker would later take his own life.

The package never arrived.

“Having this kind of outstanding unknown, of are we going to get the package, if so, when? What’s in it?” Gould said.

“What did he feel was so important that he didn’t want to leave it at his apartment for my mom but he specifically needed to send it to her to ensure that it got to her?”

Gould believes the package contains family keepsakes and memorabilia.

Now, after months of attempting to track it down, Canada Post has told them their case is closed.

“That’s what’s so frustrating. He got a tracking number, paid for insurance, and left the receipt on the counter for us to find in his apartment so we had the ability to track it,” Gould said.

“And now they just say there’s nothing we can do.”

The only information Canada Post had was that the package was accidentally placed in an Amazon return pile. Gould had reached out to Amazon directly, but they didn’t have any more answers than Canada Post.

“They didn’t even know that there was insurance on the package, so it concerns me that their records are such that they can’t even see that,” she said.

“They were able to confirm that a staff member erroneously placed it in the wrong bin, they say it’s on a manifest, but they can’t give us any information to help Amazon track it down.”

Bakker’s relatives describe him as an active, fun-loving family man. Gould remembers speaking to him last November.

“When I talked with him for the last time, I was telling him how I have a toddler, a three-year-old, I was telling him about how busy work was and how busy she is,” she said.

“And he just said, ‘I wish I had something to do.’”

Meanwhile, even with the tracking number, shipping receipts, and insurance on the package, Gould and her family are still left with the pain of not knowing Ed’s final sentiment.

“In his final days of life, he had this plan of getting this package to my mom, and she doesn’t get that,” she said.

“She doesn’t get that closure.”